- 1[uncountable] a force that causes bad things to happen; morally bad behavior the eternal struggle between good and evil the forces of evil You can't pretend there's no evil in the world. opposite good
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- 2[countable, usually plural] a bad or harmful thing; the bad effect of something the evils of drugs/alcohol social evils Idioms
the less unpleasant of two unpleasant choices
a thing that is bad or that you do not like but which you must accept for a particular reason The loss of jobs is regarded as a necessary evil in the fight against inflation.
Check pronunciation: evil